[computer-go] 9x9 games wanted and the next big challenge

[Jim O'Flaherty, Jr.]

Chrilly,

The purpose of investment is to generate a return exceeding the original 
investment, i.e. a profit.  Given the state of Go, I am finding it 
difficult to imagine why an investor would choose to put any good money 
into Go.  There is absolutely no reliable expectation that Go will 
achieve even close to strong amateur status (1D) in the next couple of 
years.  It's possible some wealthy person might decide to generously 
donate money into the computer Go domain so as to forward his own 
passion, just as many of the people here generously donate their own 
very valuable personal time.  Go is not a reasonable place to put 
investments.  At present and from everything I can see, computer Go 
development depends upon personal passion and generosity.  And sans a 
huge breakthrough, I am currently unable to see this changing anytime soon.

That said, I think once Go AI becomes sufficiently and robustly skilled 
to reliably start giving strong amateurs (>1D) genuinely competitive 
games, you will start to see investment rise.  And given a sufficiently 
high enough rate of change (objectively measured as increases in playing 
skill), you will start to see the investments accelerate as competition 
will spur on more innovation resulting in more successes resulting in 
more investment resulting in further innovation...and a positive 
feedback loop will be boot strapped.  As the probability of producing 
profits rise, the risk around insufficient returns on an investment 
fall.  Eventually a threshold is crossed and the system becomes 
self-generative.

Succinctly put - there is no money in computer Go (at least compared to 
computer Chess) because there is currently no hope (mathematically 
speaking) of the existing crop of computer Go programs to scale up to 
anything less than moderate amateur levels.  Once this changes from no 
hope to a remote possibility, the investment around Go will likely follow.

No to be too "Zen" here, but...the sooner you accept things as they are 
and stop resisting "what is", the sooner you become free to move 
forward.  Go investment is working exactly as it ought, in relation to 
the "whole".

Finally, thank you for your contribution to computer Go.  I get that it 
is an act of generosity (realistically, what else could it possibly 
be).  And I personally appreciate it.


Jim


chrilly wrote:
>
>
> Sil wrote:
>> How about http://home.wwgo.jp/jp/minigo/
>>
> It seems that only 24 games are available. Is the whole collection
> available somewhere?
> Rémi
>
> I have read dozens of times that computer-Go is the next big challenge.
> But in fact it is a completly amateuristic field where even the most 
> basic things are missing. As a chess programmer I did not even think 
> about, that it is a problem to get a good game collection. There are 
> no proper interfaces, no serious tournaments, a wired data standard...
> AND there is no money involved:  For professional programming I get 
> 60Euro/h (1Euro=1.35$).
> 2.000h x 60 = 120.000 Euro.
> This equation is of course completly wrong. One can not make in 2000h 
> a very strong Go programm and one can not earn 120.000 Euro with it.
> A more realistic equation is;
> 20.000 Euro/5000h = 4Euro/h.
>
> The minimum wage (by law) is in Austria 6Euro/h. Obviously Go 
> programming is even more unqualified than washing dishes in a restaurant.
>
> If it would be really a big challenge, there would be some money. In 
> chess nowadays there is also no money. But once it was a good business 
> and there was some considerable money for Deep Blue and on a smaller 
> scale also for Hydra, there was Don's project at MIT, one got a big 
> Cray for Cray-Blitz, Ken Thompson build a chess engine....
> Its like some hobbyst engineers and hobby-pilots would try to fly to 
> the moon.
> Its probably only good for to write some academic papers. In this case 
> its even an advantage that everything is so amateuristic. The general 
> level is low and one can be the one-eyed king under blind ones.
>
> Its clear to me that things are as they are in the West. Go is played 
> only by a small freak community. But if it is so important in 
> China/Korea/Japan why is'nt there something like Fritz and ChessBase? 
> Or does it exist and we are living in a completly other Go-world?
>
> Chrilly
>
> P.S.: I do not want to offend anyone in this list. Everybody here does 
> his best. I am just feed up with the things as they are.
>
>
>
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